The South, they tell me, never alters. It is said to be the least characteristic and most uninteresting part of the United States. “You will not care for it,” I was told. “It has not changed in fifty years.” It is certainly little visited. It does not exemplify the hustle and efficiency of the North. And then you cannot lecture down there. It is not a literary domain. The consequence is that in Great Britain many people confound the “Southern States” with the Republics of South America. I was asked in letters why I had gone South. It was thought there must be less interest there. But that is a mistake. The South is as vital as the West and the East. On the whole it is more picturesque. It is not so diversified, but the vast areas of cotton on the one hand and of sugar and corn and rice on the other, and the forests, present well-marked features and give the South a handsome natural aspect. It is true that the Southern point of view as regards the Negro does not change very much, and that all vote one way, but it does not follow that the Southern point of view as regards the whole future of the United States has not been modified and will not change. The South has been very poor and is becoming rich, will perhaps become very rich and prosperous. It was almost deprived of political power, and now it has, in an extraordinary way, regained political power. It is well known that the opinion of a poor and ruined man changes when Fortune makes up to him for the past. So also with the South. Then, in considering a people as a whole, one is bound to reckon character. Thus, in Great Britain, what important factors are the ruggedness of Yorkshire and Lancashire, the caution of the Scots, the authority-loving of the southern counties, the enthusiasm and imaginativeness of the Celts. And in America one has to reckon, not only with the Puritan fervor of New England, but with the determination and turbulence and group instinct of the more cavalier spirit of the South. Though heat makes the Southern women languid and the Southern men fiery and quick of temper, it does not seem to make them weaker. On the whole, the Southerner seems to have a stronger will than the Northerner, and despite the exuberance of North and West, and a flood of contrary ideas and sentiments, the Southerner remains, as it were, eternally incapable of being suppressed. As long as America speaks, the South will always speak. Therefore, the South is very significant in American life.